An Outstanding International MUN in İstanbul: KAIHLMUN 2018

MUNTurkey.com: Hello KAIHLMUN 2018 Team, we are following you for a while and we loved your team and KAIHLMUN2018. Could you please tell us more about Academic and Organization Team Members?

First of all, we would like to thank you for your kind compliments to our team. This year, with the theme having been set as the “Post-Truth and Justice”, we further aim to draw special attention on the cases in which appeals to emotion and personal beliefs are more important than objectivity and its impacts on justice.

In the 3rd annual session of KAIHLMUN, a trilingual conference, we are going to simulate 8 different committees that offer delegates an opportunity to rewrite the history and dominate the future. In total, we have 22 academic team members and, their distribution for each committee is as an Under-Secretary-General and two academic assistants who are progressing to be Under-Secretaries-General for next sessions of KAIHLMUN. We also collaborate with students from several schools and universities in the means of the academical field.

Furthermore, our organization team, the indispensable of the conference, has been working tirelessly and wishfully with the hope of promoting four days that would be imprinted on the memories of our participants. Even though the team faces with instant challenges in the preparation phase at times, they overcome any inconveniences and always carry the conference a step forward.

MUNTurkey.com: Imam Hatip High Schools have been organizing MUN Conferences recently, and you are of the leading MUN conference among them. Could you please tell about more about Kartal Imam Hatip High School and its foreign language education?

We would like to state that Kartal Anadolu Imam Hatip is the first Imam Hatip school that organised MUN Conferences, which is an honour for us.

Kartal Anadolu Imam Hatip High School, as an Anadolu Imam Hatip state school offering accredited international programs (IB Diploma Program & IGCSE), aims to raise the students as constructive, creative and productive persons who are physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and emotionally balanced, and have a sound personality , with the ability to think freely and scientifically and have a broad worldview, that are respectful for human rights, value personality and enterprise, and feel responsibility towards society.

As the first high school offering vocational religious training combined with intensive foreign-language education in Turkey, we are also the first state school to offer Cambridge IGCSE curriculum to its students, and the second to offer IB, thus being one of Turkey’s leading public schools with a high national and international reputation.

In 2013, an English-Arabic bilingual preparatory year was introduced and the first steps towards being an international school were taken, among which there was the establishment of the Model UN Club. With this, the school has once again corroborated its motive to help students excel in both national and international fields. This approach has been conducted to the students with perspectives on a broad and dappled basis and raising them as cultivated peers, allowing them to have unbiased mindsets.

MUNTurkey.com: As we see on the website that KAIHLMUN 2018 will be international. What makes KAIHLMUN 2018 an international conference? How many participants will come from Turkey and abroad?

As we look at previous editions of KAIHLMUN Conference, it is clearly seen that we have well-beloved participants from over 3 continents, and more than 10 countries including USA, England, Austria, India, Pakistan, Jordan, Romania, Cyprus and the list goes on. We would like to highlight the importance of being international conference since we believe that people from different backgrounds enhance the cultural wealth of the organization. So we further aim to create an atmosphere that our participants can be able to have cultural exchange while co-operating each other as well as offering them a chance to form a -healthy and reciprocal- communication with other participants. Also, we bestow great opportunities for our foreigner delegates.

As it always has been, we received a high number of applications from international areas for our 3rd annual conference, KAIHLMUN’18, just as the previous years. KAIHLMUN’18 team is ready to host 250-300 delegates as total including a manifold number of international delegates.

MUNTurkey.com: Here it comes the most important part! We are all excited to learn about your MUN career. How did your career start? How do you choose your members of MUN Club? Is it open to everyone in Kartal Imam Hatip High School?

We have had an active Model United Nations club for five years, a club not only attending regional student UN simulations and receiving numerous awards, but also attending and organizing other political workshops and conferences. Established in 2014 in Kartal Anadolu Imam Hatip High School, KAIHLMUN Club has so far became part of many regional student Model UN conferences as active participants and business-politics conference aimed at professionals as spectators in addition to occasional workshops with researchers in Foundation for Social, Economic and Political Research (SETA), the so-called ‘think tank’ of contemporary Turkish foreign politics, scholars in the field of politics in various universities such as Sehir University and Marmara University, and the organizers of large-scale international events such as International Arabic Competitions.

As school term starts, we, KAIHLMUN Club members, role up our sleeves and congregate for new projects with great devotion. We have a two-phased interview at the beginning of the term for newbies who demand to join our club. First, attendees take an exam in which they need to answer the questions based upon United Nations or current updates that are circulating throughout the world. The students whom found qualified enough as a result of the evaluation processes of the preliminary interview that is carried out by the senior members of KAIHLMUN Club, pass on the next stage; the oral exam, with which we aim to examine the attendees’ command of language and their ability of bonding the rhetoric with academical background extemporally. Ultimately, after perscrutation, we announce the new members of our zealous family. We also arrange MUN workshops once a week with club members in order to improve delegate profile of our newbies and accustom them for the future MUN Conferences.

With the motive of sharing the intellectual accumulation from these activities, we as KAIHLMUN Club had the honour to be a part of the MUN community not only as applicants but also as organizers. In 2018, the club members are more than elated to elevate this effort to offer an even better conference.

MUNTurkey.com: How can you define Model United Nations? Now you have a chance to organize an MUN from top to the bottom. What kind of innovation will MUNers see in KAIHLMUN 2018?

For us, Model United Nations is hope, a possible solution for the dilemmas of the humankind. An eye to watch over and at the same time, an aspect of the history; past, present and future. Briefly, a lesson to learn.

Even though ineffectiveness is widespread throughout the process, we also believe that this resembles the very nature of the -chequered- human self. All the political connections and processes around the world mirror the exact environment and relations of a single person’s, reflecting our lives on a big, big screen. This is why we yearn to see and for 3 years now, to show.

As a difference, we have set the conference in a way that all the committees are special (non-GA). This not only makes the sessions less boring, but it also appeals to the rest of the lives of the participants, as the procedure is not a simple talk-and-sit anymore. We also have a JCC committee with 3 cabinets to triple the thrill. For some of our special committees, we even grant costumes to make them live the atmosphere!

Yes, we provide a snug for our venerable advisors in which they can ensconce and have a conversation with other advisors have been attended, at set times. Besides, they may take part in the sessions as an observer if they willing to see their students active participation in debates.

MUNTurkey.com: Why people should attend KAIHLMUN 2018?

As our privileged and exclusive objection set and stated, we further aim to develop our delegates in means of academic knowledge and the ability of crisis management that will be used in every part of life. As all our committees are special, sessions will be extra fruitful not to mention our JCC. Our academic team is fully-equipped and presents you our deliberately chosen committees.

In means of organisation, we have planned every one of our coffee breaks to be unique and effervescent. No expense was abstained. With all the surprise events and fun on the wait, one should be really sulky to not enjoy.

MUNTurkey.com: Except MUN, members of MUNTurkey.com would like to know you more. Could you please mention about your favourite Movies, Tv Series, Bands and Foods?

Actually, we prefer to watch movies rather than Tv series if we have spare time but it kinda impossible for us nowadays since there is a short time left to KAIHLMUN’18.

Well, if the case is cinema, Iranian movies are an absolute must to mention upon when we take into consideration the distinctive Persian cinematic language which harmonizes the visual art with poetry through the symbolic narration. And the first thing comes to the mind, and also the favourite of us is that the movie Baran, which is the story of an Afghan girl, Baran, immigrated from her homeland and the adolescent boy, Lateef, working in the construction. The film offers us a chance to witness the deplorable outcomes of the Afghan war through the window of tough and pathetic life of the clandestine workers.

Uhm, we may say that every week, new TV Series coming up from the four corners of theworld and they might be an enjoyable way to be acquainted with new cultures since the scenario takes shape within the frame of the scenarist’s cultural background and weltanschauung. Besides, there are some TV Series that can enhance people’s academic knowledge and raise public awareness, and in this aspect, “Black Mirror” and “Suits” take their place in our favourite TV Series list.

As it is said that music heals the soul, your playlist depends on your mood which might show an alteration within the same day so we believe that we can’t pick just one among various of bands, but somehow there is a band or a music genre that makes you happy and relax when you listen to them. For us, instrumental kinds of music are the best way to feel idyllic. Therefore our favourite band is “2CELLOS” and “Yanni”

Hmm, food, the best-loved part of almost everyone, we guess! And it is more than we can shake a stick at since Turkish cuisine has rich and mesmerizing flavours in its field, but probably the favourite one for many and us is our traditional taste, “Etli Ekmek”

MUNTurkey.com: Thank you very much for this great interview. We are sure you would like to add more about yourself or MUN world. And, last but not least, what can you tell us about MUNTurkey.com? Do you think MUNTurkey.com contributes to the development of MUN conferences and students’ self-improvement?

It is great to see that there are organisations such as MUNTurkey that contribute to the Turkish MUN society. As we have seen, they clearly have a disciplined and a confident style to include everything in, which make us even gladder. Having principles is a must, for a prestigious and an auspicious organisation just as it is important for us. We believe that MUNTurkey does an amazing job in advertising and displaying the MUNs and helps delegates take opportunities to join many different MUNs that they may have never heard before. So we express our greatest regards and thanks to the MUNTurkey staff.

As MUNTurkey.com PR Team, we would like to send our special thanks to all members of KAIHLMUN 2018 Team for this amazing interview! We are sure that KAIHLMUN 2018 is going to be a marvellous MUN conference considering the amazing team working hard to make everything perfect for everyone!